Family Support

Priority 5: Create family empowerment by collaborating to meet the basic needs of every child

It has been nationally demonstrated that if basic needs of children such as safety, health, food and housing are met, children will achieve better academically. It is important and necessary to focus on changes within the formal realm of education that will boost student achievement; it is as necessary if not more fundamentally critical to ensure we are collaborating to meet the basic needs of children to enhance their readiness to learn.

We are proposing three strategies to be implemented over a 1-3 year time frame that will lay the necessary foundation for future work in meeting basic needs for school readiness. First, the priority team will collect necessary information for effective programming and secondly, the forums will provide opportunities for stepping outside of agency and interest area silos to explore collaborative opportunities and align ourselves with Federal Priorities.

Strategy 1: Conduct GIS (geographic information system) Mapping

Modeled after the Alameda County Public Health Dept., for Hawaii, uniquely including an overlay of how the data affects academic achievement.

Strategy 2: Collection and promotion of collaborative programs/approaches that work around meeting basic needs locally and/or nationally that result in academic achievement